You Have Always Counted, Molly Hooper
by Cumber-Bunny-Collective
Summary: So this is all about Molly and Sherlock and how she has to take care of Sherlock after the fall while he slightly falls apart inside and their relationship develops and he has to go and destroy Moriarty's web and some really adorable Sherlolly shtuff happens. The first chapter is written by me(Katie) and the 2nd is written by Karina and we're going to switch off chapters :)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So hi! This is our first story! We've never done this before but we ship Sherlolly so much we wanted to give it a try! We hope you like it! We will try to upload a chapter as often as we can but sometimes things come up! Please leave a review or something, let us know how bad it is ha! Thanks!**

**-Katie & Karina-**

**ps: we are trading off chapters. (Katie wrote the first one, Karina the 2nd, Katie the 3rd, etc.)**

**unfortunately**** we do not own Sherlock or any of the wonderful characters in it :(**

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Chapter 1: (set literally right before the fall)

Molly Hooper was pacing in an alley between St. Bart's hospital and the neighboring building. She was nervous as she usually when she had to do something that involved the great Sherlock Holmes, but this was different.

This time she was actually helping him, she finally felt as if she was doing something of importance for him for once. Well, she's helped him before but nothing as important as this. This whole plan relies solely on her he had told her mind wandered back to the conversation she had with sherlock very late the previous night.

_"You're wrong you know. You do count… You've always counted and I've always trusted you… But you were right, i'm not okay" he said_

_She couldn't help but noticing that he seemed to have a tear in his eyes._

_"Tell me what's wrong."_

_"Molly, I think i'm going to die."_

_"What do you need?"_

_"If I wasn't everything that you think I am, everything I think I am, would you still want to help me?"_

_"What do you need?"_

_She took a sharp intake of breath as Sherlock stepped slowly towards her._

_"..you.."_

Remembering the conversation, she could barely believe that it had happened. But here she was, pacing in an alleyway she heard a noise. A gunshot. She got scared.

'what if Moriarty shot Sherlock? Oh god, what do i do! Do I call for help to make sure he wasn't shot? No. He told me to stay put until I got the signal, no matter what!'

About two minutes thinking like this, she got the signal that she would need to do her job soon.

One signal text.

Her phone dinged:

"one new message from: Sherlock"

"On my way…

SH"

That's what he told he would send her but seeing it on her phone in front of her nearly made her heart stop.

She was about to send to reply, telling him to back out but she remembered why he had to do this. Then she saw John.

He was on the phone, no doubt with Sherlock. Saying goodbye…

She watched John's reaction to what Sherlock was telling him and then he put his phone down and yelled Sherlock's name. She looked up and saw him jump, her heart breaking at the sight of it.

She closed her eyes for two reasons. One is because she didn't want to see him falling and hitting the ground, and two because Sherlock told her it would be more dangerous to know the whole plan.

She heard him hit the ground with a dull thud.

Sherlock had told her that John would not be able to see, so she rushed to him, his eyes were closed with pain.

She held back tears as she gave him the temporary, and literally, heart-stopping injection in his arm, and emptied the bag of blood, pouring into his head and upper part of his clothes and neck. She checked his pulse to make sure the medicine had done its intended purpose and opened his eyes to see his beautiful, almost empty pools of wonderful blue and green staring towards the sky. But she saw the smallest hint of pain and sadness in them before screaming as loud as she could, getting the attention of some of the emt workers.

She quickly ran back inside so that John would not see her, but he probably wouldn't have since he was distracted, staring at the sight of his now 'dead' best friend in front of him. The last thing she saw as she entered the hospital was John taking Sherlock's pulse and dropping his arm like it was going to kill him to touch it and it broke her heart.

**Soooooooo yeah, that tis the first chapter. I hope you guys liked it, and Karina is writing the second chapter now so it should be uploaded by as late as Thursday but probably tomorrow night!**

**-Katie-**

**UPDATE: I SWEAR THAT IT WILL BE UPLOADED BY TONIGHT I'M SO SORRY THERE WAS A SLIGHT COMMUNICATION ERROR KARINA'S EMAIL WAS APPARENTLY HACKED SO I PROMISE IT WILL BE UP LATER THIS EVENING AND CHAPTER 3 WILL FOLLOW VERY SHORTLY AFTER** **but i can't write chapter 3 until i read her chapter 2 WHICH IS FINISHED BTW it's just waiting to be uploaded but i haven't even been able to read it yet haha.**

**so yeah, sorry bout dat.**

**-Katie & invisible Karina-**


	2. Chapter 2

**YAY! Karina and I finally fixed the communication error. arg the file with the chapter wouldn't send but it finally worked so finally here is chapter two haha. I will put up chapter three as soon as humanly possibly! :D so yeah we hope you like it!**

**-Katie & Invisible Karina-**

_Thump._

"Did it work?"

_Thump._

"I need a coffee"

_Thump._

"What _is _that thumping?"

Sherlock's limbs felt stiff and achy as the injection Molly had given him was wearing off. He assessed the situation and realized he was alone in the morgue. He threw the white sheet off and stood up, not entirely realizing that he was completely naked. Sherlock paced around the room waiting for something, anything, to happen so he could be assured that his plan had gone smoothly.

Molly Hooper ignored the shouts of reporters and incessant pictures of the paparazzi as she made a cup of coffee, black with two sugars. She could hear them pounding on the door begging to be let in to take a picture of the great Sherlock Holmes's body. Molly looked at the clock and knew that the injection she gave Sherlock was wearing off.

"Might as well be there when he wakes up," she thought to herself.

Shutting the doors of the canteen behind her and walked towards her lab where the lifeless body of Sherlock Holmes laid. Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered she had had to examine him naked. She had averted her eyes as much as possible but Molly was extremely happy that Sherlock was not able to see the deep blush on her face or her trembling hands.

She reached the office and opened her door; she almost dropped the coffee cup.

A naked Sherlock was standing in front of her.

Molly's face was cherry red as he took the coffee cup out of her hand and took a good long gulp, almost draining the mug in one go.

Somehow, Molly seemed to find her voice, "W-what if it wasn't me who came in here, Sherlock? You have to be more careful."

"I knew it was you from the sound of the footsteps. Light enough for a woman, yet not wearing high heels as you are prone to. A fast, scurrying, gait; almost like a scared little mouse running away from its captor. That and, I could hear your audible sigh of frustration just moments before you reached the door," Sherlock said without looking up from his coffee cup.

Molly bit back a sigh.

"Well, I'm glad to see the injection wore off properly."

"Yes, of course," Sherlock mumbled, not paying attention.

_Thump._

_Thump._

_Thump._

"Oh, God, what is that infernal thumping?!" Sherlock asked.

"The paparazzi, the press, the police department, everyone who was ever touched by the presence of Sherlock Holmes," Molly said quietly.

"Oh, that's not good at all; I shall have to get out of here, unseen obviously, but how?

Sherlock paced the room mumbling, "Dead, clothes, morgue, basement, garbage chute?"

He didn't notice Molly pulling out from under her desk, a suitcase with a pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt, beat up Nikes, and an old stocking cap.

She cleared her throat, "would these work?"

Sherlock stopped abruptly and a ghost of a smile crossed his face.

"Yes, perfectly."

**We hope you liked it! Review it please and sorry to keep you waiting technology can be a shitty thing!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three: Coffee Forgotten

Molly turned away as Sherlock dressed in the clothes she gave him.

He chuckled slightly.

"Molly, you have now already seen me completely naked so it makes no difference if you actually see me put clothes on, I am not embarrassed and you have no reason to be."

"Right, yes, I, of course, sorry."

Molly turned around just as he finished putting the sweatshirt she had given him, but she wouldn't admit that she was slightly disappointed that he had already put the sweatpants on.

Sherlock lazily tied the laces on the Nikes and looked up to see if Molly was ready only to see her staring at him, mouth slightly open, and she almost looked, scared.

He internally sighed, "What is it Molly?"

"You um… I missed, um, I forgot to wipe some of the blood off of your forehead from when you were out."

He put a hand up to his hand and touched his hand, withdrew it and sure enough, there was a small amount of blood on the tip of his fingers. He walked to the sink and washed the remaining blood from his forehead before putting the stocking cap upon his head.

"Right, to the garbage shoot, quick march! Oh and also; I'm going to need to stay in your flat for a while, to keep a low profile, obviously." Sherlock said.

"What!" was all that Molly could squeak out as he practically shoved her out the doors of the morgue.

* * *

Molly practically fell into her flat with Sherlock shortly behind.

It was a triathlon to her. After basically being thrown down the un-cleaned garbage shoot at St. Barts, (and getting a banana peel stuck in her shoe and a piece of gum stuck in her hair that she would probably have to cut out of it later) she tried and failed to track down a cab, forcing them to have to walk the 3 miles to her flat. She tried to get him to hail the cab, however Sherlock complained that he simply could not seeing as it might give him away.

Finally, after being deduced to death by Sherlock about anything his eyes could pick up, which was everything, which felt like an eternity to her, the mousy pathologist and the world's only, and now 'dead' consulting detective reached her flat.

All she wanted to do was curl up in the covers of her bed with her cat Toby and cry until she fell asleep. The day had been long and hard on her, even though she felt like she didn't do much at all that was of any significance to anyone, especially the man who would now apparently be sharing her flat with her.

"Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?" she asked from her kitchen.

She didn't receive an answer and at first she thought that maybe he had already turned and left, so she quickly went to her living room to see him looking out her window, and he almost looked what sad? No, couldn't be. Scared? Why would he be scared? More like confused.

"Sherlock, what's wrong?"

"Hm? What, nothing, no I'm fine, coffee would be great, black two sugars please." He answered

"I don't believe you, what's wrong?"

He looked away from the window and furrowed his brow. Now he really was confused. 'How can she see right through me like this?'

He felt like he had been staring too wrong though and decided that he should finally answer her before she got too worried about him and decided to do something weird, like touch him or something.

"I was simply thinking about everything that happened today… the uh, the look on John's face before I jumped and I never thanked you…" It took him a moment to realize that he was crying, not much, but Molly still noticed.

"Oh Sherlock, it's ok, I understand" Molly reached out to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder but her pulled abruptly away from her touch so his back ran into the wall.

"I don't need your sympathy! And how could _you _possibly even begin to understand what my situation is right now! You're just silly, mousy Molly Hooper who works in the morgue, why would anyone notice or care about her at all!" He shouted too loudly at her.

Molly couldn't stand it, she couldn't hold back the sob that escaped loudly from her throat. Her legs felt like jelly and she ran to her bedroom, slamming the door, leaving Sherlock in the living room staring at the newly slammed door, coffee forgotten.

He cursed himself. 'How could I be so stupid and careless? She saves my life, and I insult and yell at her because I'm too stupid to think about her silly _feelings!'_ He spat the word in his brain when he thought it.

'I wouldn't be surprised if she throws me out now, and then where will I go! I have to fix this, one second I'm trying to thank her and the next I'm practically screaming at her! This means I have to show sentiment…' he cringed at the thought, 'I have to apologize.'

"I want coffee." He said to nothing.

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**See! I told you this one would be up really fast! I hope you like it and chapter 4 will be up ASAP. Review and stuff. Until next chapter!**

**-Katie & Invisible Karina-**


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's another one! Three in one night! Lucky you! I love this chapter! Do not fret about the ending though! Karina did an amazing job showing a new side to 'mousy' Molly Hooper!**

**-Katie & Invisible Karina-**

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chapter 4: Coffee Untouched

Sherlock fumbled around Molly's kitchen trying to find her coffee maker. He finally found it in a hidden cabinet under her kitchen sink. It was off white, old, and well worn out by the continuous use. He opened her cupboards and found a rather expensive brand of coffee. Coincidentally, it was his favorite brand. Rich and bold, it left a smoky after taste when made correctly.

He tried to block out the quiet sobs coming from the other room as he poured two cups of the dark liquid. He found the cream and sugar. He prepared his own coffee, and put three lumps of sugar and two teaspoons of cream in Molly's; just how she liked it.

The quiet cries of despair continued and Sherlock grimaced as he fixed his face in a "comforting" gaze. He placed the coffee on a nearby table and opened Molly's door. Her back was turned away from the door but he could see her shoulders shaking in a desperate attempt to stop her tears. He walked around to her side and placed the coffee mugs on her bedside table.

She wouldn't look up at him. Her tears had finally stopped, but Molly couldn't trust herself to speak at the moment. Sherlock sat next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He was shocked to see that Molly flinched away from him. Almost as if he had struck her. She jumped so far that she almost hit herself on the bed's headrest. However, she still didn't look up. Sherlock sighed quietly, willing himself not to roll his eyes.

He lowered his voice and dropped his gaze, "Molly, I am truly sorry."

He looked up and saw no reaction out of her. He pressed on.

"I don't know what came over me just then. I guess you could say that I let myself get carried away with…feelings. Right now, I feel scared and alone and like all of my efforts are for nothing."

By this point, Sherlock truly didn't know what was his coercion and what was the truth.

He didn't know what else to say so he wrung his hands and waited for her.

They sat in silence for almost a full five minutes before Molly finally cleared her throat.

Her voice was shaky, as if it had been unused for twenty years.

"Alone? Sherlock, what are you _talking _about?"

Sherlock looked up in surprise. Before he could speak, Molly interrupted him with no intention of stopping.

"Alone? _Alone?_" She seemed to be speaking to him but talking to herself at the same time.

"Alone is someone with no one to take care of them. Alone is someone with no friends, co-workers, family, and acquaintances. Alone is someone….someone…Alone isn't someone who _chooses_ to be alone. I helped you fake your death!" Here, she turned and spewed verbal fire at Sherlock.

"You insult me, berate me, use me, and undermine me! You're a genius, so it's obvious you know my feelings but I never thought you were cruel enough to manipulate them for your own gain! How dare you come in here and offer fake apologies after all I've done for you?!"

Sherlock sat back aghast as he saw an entirely new side of mousy Molly Hooper. He was only half listening to her as she yelled at him. Even through her anger, she was smart enough to keep her voice low enough so her neighbors wouldn't hear her.

Everything she said was true, he couldn't deny. However, having everything he had ever done to her laid out in front of him, he realized just how…_mean_ it all sounded.

He put his head down like a child but Molly immediately snapped.

"Sherlock Holmes, look at me when I am talking to you! You won't worm your way out of this one!"

For the umpteenth time that day, Sherlock was shocked as he sat there with Molly Hooper throwing everything he had ever done to her back in his face.

Sherlock sat there and saw her auburn hair, dirty from the garbage chute, falling in soft wisps from her ponytail. He saw her light brown eyes shining with enormous amounts of emotion, even if that emotion was anger that was directed towards him. Molly Hooper made no other movements. She only spoke, fiercely and with purpose, and Sherlock found that he was unable to look at anything else but her face.

He felt something, rumbling low and deep, on the left side of his chest. It was a burning that grew more intense when he looked in her eyes. He didn't know what it was, and he didn't like it.

Molly Hooper was overcome with emotion. She sat across Sherlock Holmes and for once, she didn't stutter, she didn't turn into warm pudding under his gaze. As he sat there, she felt nothing for the man she once loved except anger. Molly felt strong and powerful as every word poured out of her mouth.

Sherlock tuned back in to her voice as he heard her say,

"I'm through with this, Sherlock Holmes!"

_"What?"_

"No more. I can't love you anymore!"

_"I never asked you to love me"_

"Stay here and do what you want, but don't talk to me. Don't acknowledge me, come and go as you please, but stay out of my way! The great Sherlock Holmes is dead and that is what you will be, dead to me. I obviously don't count. I should have known that everything you said was a lie to get me to help you!

_"It honestly wasn't."_

Molly stood up.

"I'll prepare the couch for you."

She stood up and walked to her door.

Sherlock felt as though he should say something, "Molly…"

He flinched. Not because she slammed the door, but because she closed it softly. In resignation to the fate of her current living conditions.

He stood and shuffled to her bathroom. Sighing, he closed the door and took a shower. When he finished he walked out and found the couch folded out into a bed, a plate of crackers, and his cup of coffee. Toby, Molly's cat, was curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed.

Sherlock tentatively stroked the cat and finished his coffee as he heard the water from Molly's shower start up again.

Sherlock pet Toby and settled deep within his mind palace to sort out everything Molly had said.

When he resurfaced, he saw it was 2:53 in the morning and Toby was sleeping next to him.

Sherlock sighed in frustration as the fat cat was taking up space on his bed, so he got up and carried the deeply sleeping animal to Molly's room to have him sleep with her. He opened the door gently and was happy to hear that it didn't creak.

He approached Molly's bed and softly placed Toby next to her. Molly changed positions and Sherlock caught his breath. She was wearing a thin, translucent, light pink nightgown. Molly pushed the covers down and he saw that it barely went past her mid thigh.

The burning in his chest started up again and doubled when he looked away to her bed side table.

The apology coffee he had made her sat untouched.

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**what did i say huh? amazing right! like i said, do not fret about the ending to this chapter, I will fix it, i mean, honestly, molly can't stay mad at Sherlock for long.**

**-Katie & Invisible Karina-**


	5. Chapter 5

**I hope I fixed it! I died a little bit inside when I read Karina's last chapter, and I can't keep Molly mad at Sherlock. There is FINALLY some Sherlolly action in this one! yay!**

**-Katie & Invisible Karina-**

_Molly was asleep, or at least she hoped she was asleep… she was on the roof of Bart's except it was nighttime. She heard loud laughing behind her. She knew that menacing laugh. It belonged to the consulting criminal, the monster, her ex-boyfriend, Jim Moriarty._

_"y-you're supposed to b-be d-dead!" she stuttered_

_Jim laughed, no, he didn't laugh, he cackled, like a witch. _

_"Oh silly Molly, who told you that, was it Sherlock, because, last time I checked, he was supposed to be dead too!" He stuck out his lower lip like he was a pouting child._

_"W-" She was cut off by Moriarty before she could get a word out though._

_"That's right!" Jim stopped talking briefly to jump up and down and he clapped his hands a couple of times, like some crazy fangirl, "Sherlock IS dead! Just look over there!" he pointed to behind Molly and when she turned around she saw Sherlock's body on the ground with a bullet wound in his head, his eyes open, looking at her, but they weren't empty. They looked sad._

_She was about to run to him but Moriarty had slowly walked behind her and turned her head with his gloved hand to look at him. He was close, too close, to her liking. _

_"And you know what Molls? I think you should join him, you do make SUUUCH a lovely couple and I don't want to see you live without one another." He took something out of his expensive Armani suit and before Molly could even react, he stabbed her with a knife. She tried to cry out in pain, but she couldn't make a sound, but she felt the pain as if it were actually happening. _

_Was it actually happening? _

_She suddenly felt like she was falling, her entire body hurling towards nothing but the darkness below her, Moriarty's ugly laugh sounding all around her. Then she screamed, louder than she thought she ever could._

_Then she started shaking, she could barely breath, she was still screaming, and she couldn't stop crying. _

_"please let this be a dream!" she thought loudly in her mind._

_Then she screamed the one person she wished who could save her from this horrible nightmare._

_"SHERLOCK! PLEASE, SHERLOCK!" _

_Molly then suddenly felt herself be shaken, and she woke up still screaming._

* * *

"Molly, wake up! It's okay I'm here, shhhh!"

Molly just cried, while the smooth, concerned yet soft baritone voice spoke above her.

Sherlock had just been walking back to her living room after dumping the apology coffee he had made for Molly down the sink when he heard her screaming. He rushed to her room when he heard her yelling his name, but she wasn't in her bed. He rushed the other side of the bed and saw her on the floor, a bruise and cut on the side of her head from where she must have hit her bedside table when she fell, but she was still in a nightmare.

He didn't really know what to do, seeing as he had never had to comfort anybody before in his life, but it almost seemed instinctive to him to want to protect her and wake her up, let her know that he was there, so he scooped her into his arms, smoothing down her hair with his hand and gently rocking her back and forth.

"Shhh, Molly it's okay, please wake up, I'm right here, nothing's going to hurt you, I promise."

Molly kept her eyes, firmly shut as she softly sobbed into Sherlock's shirt, slowly calming down as she heard his own racing heartbeat hammering away in his chest.

"You probably think I'm stupid, crying over a stupid nightmare like this," she said quietly.

"Molly Hooper! I may think of you as many things, however I never have, and never will ever think of you as stupid. It just so happens that I know how terrifying and real nightmares can seem and it helps to know that someone is there and it just so happens I heard you calling my name, so I figured that I would be better at helping you out of the hellish dream you were experiencing then no one at all" Sherlock stated matter-of-factly.

"Oh, well, thank you… I-I just, I dreamed, no, it wasn't a dream at all, I just ugh I had a nightmare that _HE(_it didn't take a consulting detective to figure out who "he" was) was still alive and he killed you and then was killing me and I felt like I was falling and oh Sherlock, I'm so sorry I yelled at you earlier that was so stupid of me, and I said I couldn't love you anymore but how am I ever supposed to just stop suddenly I was so bloody stupid, I never even thought that you must have felt so lonely after having to jump off of a building to save your only friends and I was so inconsiderate by overreacting at what you said and I just-"

Sherlock laughed, that familiar tightness in his chest back once again, "Molly, you're rambling again."

But she didn't stop; "I just thought that you were being unfair by saying you were alone, I mean I guess you might have felt alone, but how could you ever say you were completely alone I mean come on Sherlock we live in a world with like, 8 billion fucking people in it you're never alone-"

This time Sherlock knew what would shut Molly up and he leaned over and kissed her.

It held so much passion from him and Molly squeaked through the kiss, surprised at what was happening, but after a moment, returned the kiss and wrapped her arms around his neck, putting a hand in his silky soft (_oh shit how could they ever be THIS goddamn soft)_ hair. They eventually starting exploring each other's mouths with their tongues, wanting to map out the other, never wanting to let go, and to stay in this position forever, in each other's arms.

Sherlock pulled back first seeing as that they were both running out of air, and panting, he rested his forehead against his. Even though Molly was still in his lap, he was almost doubled over to rest his head on hers but he felt so _right _in this position.

She almost didn't hear him speak, barely above a whisper "I have always considered you a friend, and you will always count greatly to me, more than I can ever admit."

Molly couldn't help but turn a dark crimson red at his words as she thought "did I just fucking _snog_ Sherlock _bloody_ Holmes?"

Not realizing she had thought it out loud, Sherlock couldn't contain his laughter and bent his head back so he leaned against her bedframe, still laughing until his side hurt and he answered

"Yes Molly Hooper, I believed that you just 'snogged' Sherlock bloody Holmes!"

Molly too was laughing and they just sat together, Molly laying on Sherlock, laughing, and she put up a hand to wipe away the tears from her face when she touched her cheek and it hurt. She jumped slightly in surprise and Sherlock looked down as she pulled her hand away and looked at it in horror to see blood on it.

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**omg did i fix it? i really hope i did i loved writing this chapter so much! 3. Last upload of the night though. I have to get some homework done seeing as school starts in 8 hours haha whoops, bye!**

**-Katie & Invisible Karina-**

**UPDATE: SO SO SO SO SORRY THE UPDATE HAS NOT BEEN UPLOADED YET! KARINA HAS BEEN HAVING A LITTLE BIT OF TROUBLE WRITING IT BUT IT WILL BE UP AS SOON AS SHE'S DONE. WE'RE SO SO SORRY :(**


	6. Chapter 6

**WOOHOO! An update! Sorry to keep you guys waiting for so long! Karina got grounded and got the chapter to me as soon as she could and i just read it and i love it and now i'm writing chapter 7 now! Should be within an hour or two! Love you guys! and without further ado: chapter 6! Hope you love it! REVIEW PLEASE! **

**Katie & Invisible Karina**

* * *

Molly awoke with a gasp as her alarm blared. She jolted in her bed and sat straight up. Her hand was extended in the air as if she could still touch Sherlock's bleeding forehead.

Molly looked around in confusion.

"It all seemed so… real," Molly blushed, touching her right pointer finger to her lips.

She absentmindedly stuck her hand out and found Toby's sleeping figure next to her. He purred deeply as she stroked his ears, caressing his soft head as she tried to sort out her thoughts about the events that had happened that day.

"Was I overreacting?" Molly thought, ashamed of her words.

She stopped petting Toby and ran her fingers through her hair, shaking out her light brown tresses. She furiously rubbed at her eyes as the mere thought of tears threatened to rise up again.

"I'll just say I'm sorry," Molly thought, "it's not like he hasn't done worse to me before."

"But has he really?" a nagging voice at the back of her head scoffed nastily.

Molly sighed roughly and pushed all negative thoughts out of her head and looked at her still blaring alarm clock.

5:30; work would start in 2 hours.

Getting up, Molly pulled the covers over Toby so he wouldn't get cold in the bleary autumn morning. She smiled fondly at the cat and walked to her bedroom door. She stopped when she grasped the handle.

"Would Sherlock be there that morning? Would he be angry with her?"

Molly swallowed her fear and opened the door that lead into the small hallway. She padded lightly, if he was still there he could either still be loopy from the injection or he would be in his mind palace; she didn't want to interrupt either one.

She stopped at the corner and poked her head out of the hallway into the living room. What she saw honestly didn't surprise her.

The folding bed had been put away, the kitchen was clean, and it was as if there was no trace of Sherlock Holmes at her apartment. Molly let her eyes take in the somewhat depressing scene.

"He's angry with me. I can't let him come back to a hostile environment. Even if he doesn't want me to be, I'm the only one he can honestly talk to right now." Molly thought.

She left to go get ready for work and finished in the kitchen with a pot of freshly brewed coffee.

Molly poured herself a cup and kept thinking of a way to fully apologize to Sherlock.

"He wouldn't want anything sappy, or sentimental, or overly-dramatic."Molly mused, "No tears," she told herself firmly.

Molly paced up and down her kitchen wracking her brain for a heartfelt yet distant apology.

In the end, she gave up. She took out her notepad from her kitchen drawer. It was a simple light pink with lines across it; feminine yet simple. Molly smiled as she remembered buying it the first day she began working at Bart's. She thought she was going to be writing down important notes almost every day and her smile faded slightly when she realized that she had resigned to autopsying bodies every day, taking on the mangled, disgusting, corpses that no one else dared even look at. Why? Well, it was simple. Sherlock Holmes needed bodies, and Molly was the only pathologist willing to examine them at ungodly hours.

Molly shook her head as she took out her favorite black fountain pen and wrote in loopy cursive,

**_I'm Sorry_**

She capped the pen, pet Toby, and left for another long day at work, hoping that Sherlock would see her apology.

* * *

Sherlock kept his back hunched, his shoulders dropped, and his dirty face down as he strode through the streets of London. His underground connections had been a big help as almost every homeless man and woman of England gave him information on his "death."

Apparently, John and Mrs. Hudson were distraught, the presses were having a field day, the police department had slowed down considerably on solving their cases, Mycroft did not believe his brother was dead and had every single one of his connections searching, and poor Molly Hooper had been hounded and attacked by every paparazzi reporter since after they discovered that she was the one that had autopsied his body.

The good news? There was no more Jim Moriarty but rumor had it that a new threat had risen. A successor of some sort had come up from the underground as Moriarty's heir; a loyal follower that sought to annihilate Sherlock as much as his former did.

Sherlock's stomach growled. Being homeless and dead meant he couldn't pop in to a diner when he was hungry. He sighed; annoyed that it had to interrupt his day. He was never usually hungry before.

"It must be the injection." Sherlock thought, as he turned a corner to a back alley where Molly's apartment stood close by. He accidentally bumped into a man coming out of that same direction.

He arrived and entered through a back door. Molly was so obvious that he knew where she kept her spare key; inside of the flowerpot hanging outside her door. Sherlock smiled faintly despite himself.

He opened the door and was met by an empty apartment. It was almost noon, Molly was at work.

Sherlock walked briskly to her kitchen, now desperate to quiet his growling stomach. He made himself a coffee and found the crackers that Molly had given him yesterday. He set himself a place at the table and began chewing thoughtfully on his meal waiting for his coffee to finish brewing.

He looked down at his plate for another cracker and he saw a small slip of pink paper peeking out from under his plate.

Sherlock pulled it out and read it, smiling as the coffee maker beeped signaling that his drink was ready.

* * *

11:00 pm

Molly wiped her tired eyes and stifled a yawn. Bart's that day had been incredibly boring; only a few papers to check and only one body to examine that day. No Lestrade, or John, or Sherlock to bust in with the need to see a body and figure out a case.

She arrived in front of her apartment door and stepped in.

It looked as though Sherlock hadn't been there all day. Everything looked as it had before she left. Molly sighed, defeated.

"It looks like he's decided to stay away for a while," Molly's eyes welled up as the silence cut through her like a knife.

She wiped her eyes as she sat down at her kitchen table exhausted from the constant sadness plaguing her.

She looked at the handwritten apology she had left on the table. Angrily, she began crumpling it into a ball. She stopped when she saw red marker bleeding through.

"Red marker?" Molly thought, "It couldn't be…"

Molly carefully unfolded the pink paper and smoothed it out. She flipped it over and began to laugh as she saw what was written.

**_I'm Sorry_**

**_-SH_**


	7. Chapter 7

**Here you guys go! Chapter 7 already! hope you enjoyed it, it's a moderately long one i guess!**

**Until next chapter! Love you, please review!**

**Katie & Invisible Karina**

* * *

Molly smiled at the note and gently folded it up and put it in the book on the table next to her sofa, so the next time she opened the cheap romance novel, she would be greeted with his note.

The thought that Sherlock Holmes apologized to her amazed her. He had now sincerely apologized to her twice, the other time being at the dreaded Christmas party where he deduced how much she cared for him and embarrassed her in front of John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson.

She blushed remembering the kiss that he planted on her cheek and subconsciously reached her hand up to the spot where his lips had been. Then she remembered the fantastic dream from the previous night when they had kissed him and her blush deepened.

"Shut up Molly Hooper it was another one of your stupid impossible fantasies and nothing else!" she practically shouted to herself.

She sighed and walked to her room, hopeful that maybe he would magically come back during the night or at least come back to her in the form of a dream.

As she got ready for bed an unsettling that she was being watched rushed over her with a cold chill. She promptly grabbed her night clothes, a pair of boy shorts and a baggy t-shirt, and rushed to the en-suite bathroom to finish preparing for bed.

When she walked back into her room she shrugged, the feeling of being watched gone, and curled up on her bed with Toby to her chest, his purring lulling her softly to sleep.

* * *

Sherlock was sleeping under a bridge. Well sort of. He wasn't really sleeping, he was crouched behind a garbage bin near a small bridge in a park, waiting for his new nemesis to come out of the shadows.

He heard from one of his main homeless resources, a clever teenage by the name of Wiggins, that Moriarty's possible successor, who he know new was a man named Sebastian Moran, would be meeting with the assassin that was supposed to shoot Mrs. Hudson at 1:30 am, so that's where he was.

Upon doing research on Moran, he learned that he used to be in the army, and fought in Afghanistan, just like John… Sherlock felt a slight pang in his chest, but quickly dismissed it, quick to shut out the pain of loss again.. While looking into him more, he learned that he was dishonorably discharged for killing 6 innocent civilians, with his bare hands.

Sherlock quickly snapped back into reality when he heard two cars approaching from a short distance away, two car doors slamming and two sets of footsteps approaching.

Based off of the noise of the footsteps one of them was wearing dress shoes, large ones with heavy steps and huge strides, but heavier on the front, indicating that he was uncomfortable in them, probably because they were new and he wasn't used to wearing such expensive, dressy shoes. This had to be Moriarty's mystery successor.

The other footsteps belonged to a significantly shorter man who walked with shorter, lighter steps than Moran, but yet walked with the same amount of over confidence.

When they finally came into his line of sight, he discovered he was right, of course, but he also noticed the size of his new nemesis.

He was roughly 6'6", and weighed about 260 pounds of pure muscle, with the size of a professional linebacker in his new form fitting Armani suit, obviously trying to mimic Moriarty. His hands were clenched at his side and his face was stern and his eyes held so much hatred for what? Sherlock? The world?

Before Sherlock could deduce more about the shorter accomplice, they started to speak.

"So was he in her flat or not?" Moran asked the shorter man.

"She was, but he wasn't. The only thing she did that was look at some note, smile, and put it in a stupid book, go to her bathroom, change, and curl up on her bed with her stupid cat, sir" the shorter man answered.

Sherlock clenched his fists, they were obviously talking about Molly but he didn't know why it was making him so angry. He shook his head, well because he wanted her safe of course not being stalked by these horrible people! Well was he much better than them, he wondered.

"Well what the fuck are we supposed to do now?! God dammit! Moriarty left me nothing to go in if Sherlock had survived the fall, he was so sure that he wouldn't!" Moran yelled. He then smoothed his hands down his suit and straightened up, regaining his composure. But then he turned toward where Sherlock was hiding, and his mouth turned upwards in a crooked half smile.

"Do you want me to continue to watch the stupid Hooper girl and see if he comes back?" the shorter man asked nervously.

"No." Moran smirked. "I want to leave him alone for now. But I think I do have a plan. Follow me, I don't think we're alone…" and with that they turned around and stalked off.

"I have to figure out his plan, at least he isn't going to be watching Molly for now…" He thought to himself before walking out, figuring out what he should do next, pulling out his new phone, looking up more information about Sebastian Moran.

He would have to return to Molly soon, he had to keep her safe from Moran as long as he could, but he couldn't bring himself to return to her just yet...

* * *

Molly woke up to her alarm blaring at her again, a dreamless sleep.

She got ready slowly and right before she was going to leave for work, her phone started to ring.

It was John. "Oh god" she thought before answering it after the third ring.

"Hi John."

"Hello Molly, So I, um, wanted to talk to you about um Sher- uh, sorry his…funeral" John's voice sounded rehearsed and his voiced sounded choked when he tried to say his name.

"Oh of course John, when is it."

"Actually it's Sunday, so um, tomorrow, I just, wanted to get it down as soon as possible, you know? It's going to be at the cemetery down the street from Bart's at 8." John replied.

"Alright, thank you John, I'll be there tomorrow morning at 8, thank you for calling. Stay strong." She said sadly a couple of stray tears finding their way down her cheeks.

"I'll, try, you too" He said too quickly before hanging up.

She sighed and went to work, going through the day in a daze. She didn't even remember going to bed until her alarm woke her up the next morning.

* * *

The funeral of Sherlock Holmes was actually rather quick, nobody really wanting to be there, because they were all hurting so much, and Molly was afraid she would just scream the fact that he was alive to everyone, hating to see the fact that they were so hurt and she could help them, and it made her feel like she was suffocating. It was small. The only ones there were John, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and a few people from Scotland Yard, Mycroft, and Molly.

She decided to walk back to her flat since she didn't have enough money after paying for the cab fare to the cemetery.

When she was three blocks from her flat, she felt goose bumps raise on her arms, and the hair on her neck stand on end, that familiar feeling of being watched returning. She walked faster, soon abandoning the heels so was wearing next to a building and practically running but as she passed by an alley, only a block from her flat, she felt a blow to the right side of her face as she was pulled into the alley and pushed against a wall. She heard manic laughter, not unlike the late consulting criminal, Moriarty's. She glanced at her attacked and gasped at how tall and big he was, and how crazy and scary he looked with the crooked smile showing amusement and hatred and excitement in his eyes.

"Stupid girl, you can't run from me, and neither can Sherlock" was all she heard before she blacked out, the last thing she felt was fear for Sherlock, and her head banging against the wall she was pressed up against.


End file.
